Day 18 – Tuesday : Mt Rainier to Ocean City (456 km) We’ve got ahead of schedule. I was hoping we would because I really wanted to get out to the Pacific coast, and now we can.
While Sally gets ready I take a walk out of the campground and across the road to the Nisqually River. The river is a series of streams winding through a wide flat bed of rocks and fallen trees. I imagine this is a sight to see when in full flood.
The cap of mist over the summit of the mountain proved to be an indicator of a weather change. Well, we are I the PNW now so we can’t rightly expect blue skies every day. No mountain is visible as we descend in the mist and clouds.
Heading west I see an ominous sign I’ve never seen before:
We take highway 7 south then head further west on US-12 before stopping for tea at Mayfield Lake.
Trying to avoid the freeway I turn left half a mile later to try to find a route down local roads. The GPS obliges and suggests there is a route this way, however it eventually tells me to turn right onto a logging track – I think that’ll be a no, at least in this rig.
We return to US-12 and just before the freeway turn left onto the road to Toledo, and from there head east on highways 505 and 504. The area’s main industry is evidently logging, but it is also clearly a poor area. Those who know the area can guess why we have detoured here.
The weather has improved and although its head is still in the clouds, the base of Mt St. Helens is clear as day, as is the amount of damage done by the eruption 37 years ago (wow, is it that long ago?). You can see how much nature has recovered from the barren wasteland we remember from the months after the eruption.
The Johnston Ridge Observatory is packed with kids on school trips. We listened to a really great talk from a young ranger about the events of May 1980, but it is a struggle to hear as bored children, supposedly listening to the talk, chat noisily amongst themselves.
We descend to the previous parking and observation point, which has a view almost as good as the observatory, but is a heck of a lot quieter, and enjoyed our sandwiches there.
Back through Toledo we turned north for a short stretch on I-5 before turning north west at Centralia onto US-21 following the Chehalis River to the ocean. We don’t stop at Aberdeen – again it looks like a poor neighbourhood. I’ve noticed Ocean City State Park on the Rand McNally map and we head for that. I actually failed to notice a waypoint I had already programmed into the GPS for the car park of the adjacent Quinalt Beach Resort – a casino popular with boondockers. So instead end up paying a rather expensive $25 for one night at the state park. We drive around trying to find a suitable spot. Most of the cheaper budget sites (and $25 is a budget site) are muddy. The loop nearest the beach is predictably packed, so we choose a loop nearer the entrance which is very quiet and in it find a site that should rightly be a more expensive premium one in terms of its size, but seems to have missed being paved, so is cheaper. The truck leaves ruts in the soft ground, which I will endeavour to stamp flat before we leave tomorrow. The wind is whipping across the shoreline, so we are relieved to be camped back from it in the shelter of this park among the trees. Suddenly $25 doesn’t seem so bad compared to a sand-blasted car park.
I find this park confusing initially. I can’t work out which sites are taken as they don’t have posts with clips on. I phone their booking number, but the lady, though pleasant, doesn’t know how it works if you just turn up without a booking. I walk back to the entrance and carefully read the notice board again and suddenly it made sense. They list which sites are booked. If your preferred site isn’t booked you can occupy it on a first-come, first served basis.
We take a walk along the beach. Cars are allowed to use this one, and a few are enjoying the experience, if not the wind. We make the token gesture of touching the Pacific.
Back at the camper I try to phone PJ to arrange to arrange to meet up in a couple of days. Again, the cell network isn’t very helpful and I can only get a signal by climbing up onto the crunchy roof of the camper.
